On the 11th, 12th & 13th July, Pan-species Listing had a presence at our second Global Birdfair and we were again listing the whole event on the site and the nearby meadows, hedgerows and woodland. We were keen to beat our 2024 total of 641 species but I have only just this afternoon finished identifying all the specimens. Did we make it? You'll have to wait... The set up was the same as last year, Mike set up a laptop and screen on our stand so we could tick species off as we found them and Andy arrived on the Saturday. I ran six one hour bioblitzes each day at 10.00 am and 2.00 pm (it was much hotter than last year and they were tough) and as we'd done it last year, far more people knew to bring their records to us. Especially those camping and running moth traps.
Here's our stall, with this year's new recruit, Mark Colvin who helped out for all three days.What a legend! A huge thanks, Mark.
We had Gatekeeper and Humming-bird Hawk-moth in the stall before we had even set it up.
I ran a talk to kick things off and the first two bioblitzes were extremely hot, setting the scene for a sweltering weekend! It's great to see familiar faces at these events.
As per usual, I forgot to take photos of people or landscape shots for that matter - just close up shots of small invertebrates and moths in pots. The first trap we opened on the Saturday morning was really lively and I got a couple of lifers. Eudemis porphyrana is a Na species on apple (which is abundant there). I have been wanting to see this for years! As I close in on 10,000 species, I still find new species most days, averaging at more than one species each and every single day, even in places that don't at first glance seem that exciting. If you hit any site hard and for long enough, you'll find something exciting!
The moth list for the weekend was nearly double that for 2024, as was the butterfly list. Purple Hairstreaks were doing very well. Then the Saturday bioblitzes started and we met this star, Billy! Billy and his mum Clare came out on two of our bioblitzes and we were all gobsmacked at how good a naturalist Billy already is at age 10. Not only that, he is super keen and really good at finding stuff and spotting things that are different (all the photos of us out in the field here were taken by Clare). You know it's going to be a great hour when species #1 is Osprey!
Billy found some great stuff too. Including this Stoat skull!
We turned a log and Billy knew this was a Lesser Stag Beetle straight away! I don't think I knew this species until I was about 30. He is planning to join us and help us out even more next year, and we look forward to seeing him then and how much his pan-species list has grown by then! Keep up the great work!
The best way to do well in natural history is to start when you are young, so he's on a tried and tested route to end up doing something really exciting in the field as he gets older.
I wandered around a bit more this year and found a few more interesting areas. There are some big old trees here and many of the more interesting beetles are deadwood associates. Such as Platystomos albinus (Nb). So, did we beat last year's total of 641 species? Too right, we smashed it with 824 species! Here is the breakdown compared to last year's stats, along with an accumulative total for both 2024 and 2025 combined.
Look at that accumulative total! In just six days over two years in July we have recorded 1,036 species at Global Birdfair 749 of which are invertebrates. Of the 824 species we recorded this year, 395 were not recorded in 2024. This is not surprising though, it's amazing how many invertebrates you only ever find one of when surveying. Pan-species Listing can help you become a really great all-round naturalist but when we are considered collectively we can be formidable. A massive thanks to everyone who contributed records, especially Ben Rumsby and his dad (and for turning my trap on when I was off site) and also to Neil Phillips.
Next year I will be doing book signings, as it is due to be published on the 27th January 2026. You can pre-order it
here. You can sign up to pan-species listing
here for free!
And finally, here's all 824 species from those three days! I have highlighted the 17 invertebrate species with conservation status here in bold with their abbreviated status.
UDATE: I should add that we were not policing or verifying other people's records that were brought to us here, all species were accepted on face value and the records to be submitted directly by each observer. Away from moths and birds, most of the records were ours however. Also, thanks to Skev it seems that Monochroa palsutrella is a county first (we trapped this on an amazing tropical night on the 11th to 12th along with quite a few wanderers and lots of by-catch).
On Saturday morning I became aware that Tony Davis had found a population of Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa) near Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight on the previous day. So soon after this I booked a ferry and some accommodation for one night on the island as the tides were pretty good. By 10.30 am on the Sunday, Mark Telfer was showing me these incredible animals. Almost certainly a natural population that must have arrived at least a year ago by jumping the Channel. We found seven in about an hour and a half, four females and three males. Two of the females were clearly gravid. Here's a shot Mark took of me with one on my hand!
It was insanely cool to see these animals, even if all these new species are coming here due to climate change. I then had two days left on the island and a few fairly good low tides, so I thought I would make myself useful and do some recording. I wasn't expecting to get a mollusc new to the Isle of Wight! Anyway. before that, here are the rest of my favourite shots of the mantises.
Before I found the first mantis, I netted this Anania verbascalis, I think this is only the second time I have seen it. A scarce pyralid that feeds on Wood Sage.
Boat Bug Enoplops scapha seems to be common there!
Just as we were leaving, I stumbled on a small patch of Bastard-toadflax, which amazingly had the shieldbug Canthophorus impressus on it! It was an unforgettable hour and a half on that hillside. A huge thanks to Mark for his time and all his gen.
Before the marine stuff though, I got quite a few plant lifers. First off the super rare Field Cow-wheat, just about still in flower.
A trip to a certain valley to see Wood Calamint!
I bumped into John Poland who was with Paul Stanley, so I indulged in some 'grotany' around Ventnor Botanic Gardens and saw loads of awful plants, like this Amaranthus blitum.
But the sea was calling me and I was desperate to get some snorkelling and rock-pooling in at Bembridge Ledges. I only found three nudibranchs on this trip and none were species I hadn't seen before. Polycera quadrilineata were in the Wireweed straight under the lifeboat station.
I assume this is an adult Aeolidiella alderi. Much smaller animals were common here in the spring but I only saw this larger one this time. Very high up the shore.
And Edumndsella pedata is rapidly becoming the species I see most frequently (although I have not seen it in Sussex yet).I did get a couple of new molluscs, including a living Warty Venus Venus verrucosa.
But then, I stumbled on something rather exciting. This bizarre bivalve. It was moving around like a sea slug but with its (vestigial?) shell on top of its body. Imagine opening your glasses case and plonking it on your bonce, and you get the idea. I was impatient to find out what it was being tired and away from my books, so thank to Nathan Jackson for his help (by the way, if you want to lose the top spot for all your marine taxa groups on the PSL website, then encouraging a very keen naturalist with a passion for marine life to sign up is the way to do that). It's Galeomma turtoni and it seems to be new to the Island. In fact, the only records I can find away from the Channel Islands are from my local patch The Pound of all places in 2018 and according to Roger Herbert it was found by divers in Portland Harbour. Oh and it's also been found on he Isles of Scilly. How cool! it has the ridiculous common name of Turton's Weasel-eye.
Here's a couple of Turton's Weasel-eyes, this really doesn't sound right to me. Oh no, I have gone down a rabbit-hole. Is the pleural of weasel-eye, weasel-eyes or weasel's-eyes? That sounds even weirder. Snap out of it Graeme, it's not important!It was a whirlwind few days but a great deal of fun. I added 20+ species I think. Sunrise at Bembridge Ledges is just sublime!
Never underestimate the power of your enthusiasm for natural history to win people around. Hold that thought for now.
Yesterday I was heading back down from Broughton Sanctuary in Yorkshire and I fancied a slight detour to Anglesey to look for some more sea slugs. It was a glorious morning when I got to Menai. Now, it wasn't a great tide (about four days after the first lowest tides of the month) but I had some excellent gen from Ian Smith on a couple of tiny saltmarsh sea slugs (not nudibranchs but sea slugs none-the-less) just to the west of Menai bridge. One being very common and one only very recently being found there. It took me about 15 minutes to get my eye in and amazingly, I found the scarcest of the two species first. Here is an Alder's Sea Slug Alderia modesta on some Vaucheria algae. Close focus binoculars are so incredibly helpful here (the individuals I saw of this and the following species were all about 2 mm). The first image is of it on the alga as I found it, the second in a tray.
And here is Limapontia depressa in the field above and below (on the left) with Alderia moedsta on the right. Aren't they cute!?
With two lifers under my belt by 9.00 am, I headed back to the nudibranch hotspot with an idea in mind. A few weeks ago, Mark Colvin sent me a photo of a species he had found there and I was convinced it was going to be Catriona auriculata. This species feeds on these rather spectacular hydroids that are common there, called Ectopleura larynx. So my plan, take my time with each rock and search the hydroids slowly and carefully. The first rock I turned had four impressive Edmundsella pedata there. This is such a gob-smakingly-beautiful creature. I then put about an hour or two in searching the various hydroids for sea slugs but especially the distinctive Ectopleura larynx (below) for Catriona.
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Shortly after I got there a chap arrived who was looking for bait for catching Sea Bass. He was working annoyingly close to me, turning each rock quickly and smashing it back down (at least he was putting them back). It was quite destructive and very distracting. I was *this* close to giving him a piece of my mind when I found two more large Edmundsella pedata and called him over. I let him have a go with my close-focus bins and I watched in real time this guy realise why he needs to put the rocks back more carefully. He was blown away and really grateful, taking many photos. When I succeeded in finding Catriona aurantia he excitedly came over to me again and ended up proudly showing me his Sea Bass catches on his phone but as he went back to looking for bait, there was no smashing the rocks back anymore. As he left he thanked me for opening his eyes to these tiny creatures and I honestly believe his rock smashing days are over. It was a really cool moment, we shook hands and both our lives were enriched.
Anyways, sea slugs are like the weevils, mirids or leaf beetles of the sea! They often only eat one thing, so they really appeal to me. I have a particular affinity with phytophagous species when surveying invertebrate for work in grasslands and this interest transfers to nudibranchs - it's proper ecology. So I knew there was lots of food and searched every clump of hydroids I saw. I suddenly spotted (much smaller than I was expecting, do doubt another immature) the distinctive repeating pattern of nudibranch cerata. Can you spot them here hiding at the base of hydroid? I never would have found them without the binoculars and a plan. And being a rather persistent type.
It took a while to encourage it out, but I did! Anyways, my 16th nudibranch. Well chuffed. Here's some more shots.
I took a small clump of Ectopleura larynx back home and amazingly found two crustaceans among it I have never seen before: Apocorophium acutum and Jassa falcata. I must take more samples home!
I've just got back from a very exciting and spontaneous two-day stay on Anglesey. It involved what it best described as an avalanche of nudibranchs! It's all down to my friend Mark Colvin (and his daughter Charlotte). I had a weekend free for the first time in years and was planning to go to Cornwall. I was feeling rather discombobulated after having my first full blown migraine in 30 years on Friday morning, when Mark sent me a text saying he had just seen 23 nudibranchs of some eight to ten species! I got up the next morning, booked a B&B and was there by 4.00 pm for the next low tide.
Directly under the Anglesey side of the Menai Bridge is somewhat of a nudibranch hotspot. Indeed, I saw at least seven species when I was there. So, put on your breathing apparatus, set phasers to stun and prepare to be beamed down to the Planet of the Nudibranchs!
First up (and this is perhaps the commonest species there - albeit I have only seen this once before on Jersey) is the widespread Facelina auriculata! The iridescent blue/purple and long, gracile nature help to distinguish it from Facelina bostoniensis.
I am pretty sure this one was Facelina bostoniensis which was also present there in numbers. I have only seen this once before at the Pound.
I think this is also bostoniensis with eggs.
After the Facelina, Edmundsella pedata was the commonest, with more than 10 found under one rock grazing on hydroids (I will come back to this rock later). These are incredibly wonderful animals. Common on Jersey, I first saw this on the Isle of Wight but I have never seen it in Sussex.
Polycera quadrilineata (it's likely this and not norvegica based on the rhinophores and other factors but it's not easy to be 100% sure on this).
I found a mature Sea Lemon Doris pseudoargus. The others put it in a container with some of the other species, so you can see here how much bigger they are!
I found one Palio nothus under a rock too, I have only seen this on the Isle of Wight before but it seems a common and widespread nudibranch.
Yet amazing as this was, I was lacking a sea slug new to me! Dopamine deficiency was kicking in. So I went back for the low tide on Monday morning before I left Wales. The tide was coming in when I stumbled on the rock with all those grazing Edmundsella under. I thought I would count them using my close-focus binoculars when I spotted a totally different colour. There, poking out of the darkness of the hydroid forest, were a dozen bright orange-red, brilliantly white-tipped flares! There were also white highlights on the tentacles and rhinophores and not a suggestion of pink on the body. The rhinophores were also lealy not annulated like Facelina. This was a lifer! BUT it was under 4 mm and hard to get to.
I did eventually get it in a tray for a closer look and I soon came to the conclusion this was Microchlamylla gracilis (thanks to the amazing field guide). My 15th species of nudibranch in the British Isles! Nearly half of all the species I have ever seen I saw at this site in one weekend. Bonkers!
Sublime! We saw over 50 individual sea slugs on Saturday night, and they had at least two species on Friday night that I did not see (one of which I have never seen). I will therefore be back.
There was some other nice things there too. Like Lightbulb Sea Squirts (still scarce in Sussex).
Some Boring Sponge. It really is boring.
And lots of these hydroids, Entopleura larynx. . There are sea slugs that eat just this and it seems that the other saw one of these on Friday night! How exciting, I love to come away seeing lots of stuff but not everything as it leaves me wanting more! A massive thanks to Mark, Charlotte and all the others who came out!
Now I did a lot of other rock-pooling, snorkelling and entomology around the island in 48 hours but I will leave this for another time as it has been 15 years since I last visited the island and some 22 since I lived there, so I would like to do it justice. Now I'm off looking for rare mirids...
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